


Rules and Regulations

by manic_intent



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, That AU where John doesn't kill Gianna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 02:48:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20038663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: “I thought we were friends,” Gianna said. She faced John down, unafraid and unbowed, her sheer dress flaking the light over her skin. Her hair was bound in a crown of gold and brown ringlets over her expressive face. She wore regret in the thin press of her lips, but also pity. The pity had always been there, the strangest thing that John had always remembered about Gianna.“We are.” John reversed his grip on the gun, holding it by the muzzle. Gianna straightened up as he walked to her, offering her the pistol.





	Rules and Regulations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [forcus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forcus/gifts).

> For forcus, who asked for post-canon movie 1 where John is the Baba Yaga and Santino is in the mafia but anything else goes. 
> 
> Even though Gianna D’Antonio has a very brief appearance in the film, I actually find her more compelling as a mafia boss than Santino. Probably because Santino is a disaster flerken of a character. Anyway, here’s a story where the weird bath suicide/murder doesn’t happen.

“I thought we were friends,” Gianna said. She faced John down, unafraid and unbowed, her sheer dress flaking the light over her skin. Her hair was bound in a crown of gold and brown ringlets over her expressive face. She wore regret in the thin press of her lips, but also pity. The pity had always been there, the strangest thing that John had always remembered about Gianna. 

“We are.” John reversed his grip on the gun, holding it by the muzzle. Gianna straightened up as he walked to her, offering her the pistol. When she tilted her head instead of taking it from him, he took one of her hands in a gentle grip and closed it over the butt of the gun, tucking the muzzle under his chin. Gianna’s eyes widened. “I’ve got a dog,” John found himself saying. “Another one. It’s with Charon in the New York Continental. If he doesn’t want to keep it, could you handle it?”

“What is this, John?” Gianna asked, her calm tempered by gentleness. 

“Marker can’t be broken. You’re one of the last friends I’ve got. Pull the trigger. I’d rather it was you.” 

“Don’t say that.” Gianna decocked the gun and tugged. When John didn’t let go, she pulled again until he did, setting it behind her on the dresser. “I heard about your wife. What was her name?”

“Helen,” John said. He’d choked the name out from clenched teeth. 

Gianna straightened his collar. “Helen. I’m sorry to hear about her.” She stepped forward and curled her arms around John, pressing her cheek on his shoulder and patting his back. John’s hands stiffened at his side into fists. He was tempted to wrench away from Gianna. Push her back against the dresser and take the gun back. Instead, he waited, passive. He did not know how to grieve. Grief and loss had come to John as a state of dull shock, a bottomless well that swallowed everything else in his world. Even the rage he had felt over Daisy had long been eaten. It would eat the rest of him soon, and he could see that. It was why he’d come to Gianna at the end. 

John wasn’t sure how long they stood silent. He glanced over his shoulder at a startled, “Boss… _John?_” at the door. It was Cassian. Gianna’s bodyguard looked the same as the last John had seen him, impeccably dressed in grey and black, his hair shaven but for a trimmed moustache and beard. His gaze flicked from John to the gun. 

Gianna drew back from John but didn’t let him go. “You should have sent word,” Gianna said, patting John’s arms. “Cassian and I would have come to see you and Helen at the hospital.” 

“Oh.” Cassian cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Uhm. My condolences. Was sorry to hear about that.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” John said. He was relieved to see Cassian. “Gianna, you know what has to be done. You don’t want to shoot me yourself, fine. Cassian can do it.” 

Cassian raised both his eyebrows but made no move to get his gun. “My darling brother cashed in his Marker and put my name on it,” Gianna said. That got Cassian’s attention. He took a step forward and hesitated at some unspoken gesture from Gianna. “John, how about you get a drink with Cassian? I’ll freshen up and join you both.” 

“Probably not the best idea,” John said. “Pretty sure Ares followed me.”

“Cassian will handle that. I’m not about to bathe with an audience. I like you both very much, but not in that way.” Gianna patted John on the arm. “Shoo.” 

“You’ve got more than one gun,” Cassian said as they left the bathing chamber. 

“Knife. Have rifles, semiautomatics, shotgun in the catacombs underneath. Think Ares will come through there. I had it planned out if I ended up doing it. Was gonna shoot Gianna and leave through the catacombs. Was prepared for either Ares or your people. Or both. And you.” John eyed Cassian steadily, but Cassian only shook his head. He had a quiet word into his earpiece as he herded John into an empty room with a bar.

“Bourbon?” Cassian asked. 

“Yeah.” John sat on one of the stools, his head in his hands. He didn’t care how it looked. Cassian set a glass down by his elbow and the bottle by the other. He settled on another stool with a glass of gin.

“Really am sorry to hear it,” Cassian said, pitching his voice low. “I’ve lost people I’ve loved before too. Wish I could say the hurt would go away, but it won’t. You learn how to deal. Some days will be hard. Hell, maybe it’ll always be hard. But take the hurt as it comes. Don’t close it off.” 

“Why?” John whispered. 

“Because if you burn up what you are just so you don’t feel nothing no more, you’re just going to reduce yourself to nothing. It hurts to let someone go, sure, but my grandma would say, always try again. Always have the courage to try again.” 

John said nothing. He drank after a while, unable to think. When he drained the glass, Cassian poured him a few more fingers. They sat in silence, drinking until Gianna reappeared in an electric blue dress, its knee-length hem and décolletage embroidered with black and white pearls and iridescent black feathers. She stroked John’s back as Cassian poured her a glass of wine. “You should stay with us for a while,” Gianna said. 

“That a good idea?” John asked. 

“As of five minutes ago, I became a member of the High Table. I presume that’s why Santino pushed you to kill me at the coronation party. Any later and he’d have been responsible for moving against the High Table.” 

John hadn’t cared about the timing. “Marker’s still valid, isn’t it?” 

“Maybe. Maybe not. I’m going to have to speak to the others. And to my brother,” Gianna said. 

“That even safe?” Cassian said, sceptical. 

“Naturally not. My brother and I have been pitted against each other our whole lives. Our father wished to see which of us would be a more worthy successor to his seat. I believe it also amused him to watch us try and tear each other to pieces. Even when we were children. I tried to make peace with Santino after our father’s death and thought I succeeded,” Gianna said. 

Cassian drained his glass and poured himself more gin. “Told you he was gonna bide his time. No offence, ma’am, but your brother is a real piece of fucking work.”

“We’ve had a strange life, both of us. Despite our differences, we love each other,” Gianna said. 

John stared at her in disbelief, even as Cassian said, “Love? Ma’am, he sent _John Wick_ to kill you. Used a goddamned Marker.” 

“I know what he did.” Steel buckled into Gianna’s voice. “And I will handle it.” She patted John again, gentling her tone. “You should tour Italy. Take some time to decompress. Explore Rome. Milan. Lake Como. Maybe even Campania. The Amalfi coast is magnificent.” 

“Don’t think so,” John said. He couldn’t even muster the energy to imagine it. If he could, John would rather lie down somewhere and never get up again. He wasn’t even sure how he’d managed the energy to come to Italy. The anger that had driven him had ebbed long before he’d made his way through the party. 

Gianna pursed her lips. John had seen her volcanic temper firsthand before, a long time ago. It was just like her brother’s, her father’s, her grandmother’s. Unlike the others in her clan, Gianna leashed her temper to her will. The rest preferred cruelty. It was partly why John respected Gianna as much as he did. He’d never had any control over the worst of what he was, not like her. 

“Well, you shouldn’t be alone,” she said, instead of snapping at him as her brother would’ve done. “I think you should stay with me for a while. I’ll have your dog sent over.”

“I’m not interested in work,” John said. 

“I’m asking you to stay with me as a friend,” Gianna said, patting his knuckles. “You can do what you like, but I don’t know if you’re going to be much good to anyone if you just went home and lay down and never saw the world again. Your dog would have an unhappy life. What’s its name?”

“Haven’t thought about one yet.” It didn’t feel right to bind yet another living thing to himself. That hadn’t fared well for Daisy or Helen. 

“Well,” Gianna said, “until you do, what’s the harm? Do you have anywhere else to go?”

That was the problem. John didn’t. Besides. “Your brother blew up my house,” he said. 

Cassian sighed. Gianna raised her eyes to the ceiling briefly and said, “I’ll compensate you for that.”

“Doesn’t matter.” The black rage that had burned in John over that had ebbed as well. What did it matter that every memory he’d had of Helen had burned? She was gone. The world she’d left behind was colourless, a pitiless place. It was the one he’d grown up in, where he’d been alone out of necessity, knowing only useful people. 

“John,” Cassian said. “Hey. It’s okay. Just take things one day at a time.” 

Maybe it was no longer true that he had no one. “I’ll stay for now,” John said. 

“Good. I have a few more guests to greet and send on their way, and then we’ll go home.” Gianna squeezed John’s palm lightly.

#

His sister was waiting for him in the Medici Room, a chamber under the Rome Continental that had glass display cubes inset into the walls at chest level. Each contained curios from Lorenzo de’ Medici’s time in power. A dagger, a goblet, and a decaying saddle tassel had pride of place in the back of the chamber. Gianna sat on the divan with a glass of wine and patted the pale velvet beside her. Santino shook his head at Ares as she gave him a pointed glance at the door and she closed it, leaving him and Gianna alone. Stiff-legged, Santino walked to the divan and made a show of seating himself where indicated. He glared at Gianna as she set the wine on the coffee table and straightened his silver tie.

“It's not your colour,” Gianna said, tapping at the knot. 

Santino jerked out of her grip and looked her pointedly up and down. Gianna was sheathed in lemon yellow silk, a dress that looked as though someone had liberally attacked her with drapes. “You’re one to talk,” he said.

“It’s Balenciaga, you Philistine.” 

“Off the rack? How pedestrian,” Santino said. As with all of his clothes, his charcoal suit was handmade. 

Gianna shook her head with a low chuckle, her hands folded in her lap. “I should have you killed.” 

“You can try.” Santino had thought this avenue through, long before he’d even walked up to John’s door. It was one possibility of many, given Gianna’s years-long friendship with John, given how exhausted John had looked when Santino had talked to him. John had worn the dead-eyed grief of a man who no longer cared what the world did to him. Santino had no illusions that the driving rage that had so briefly animated John into the Baba Yaga would last. 

“Are you so petty? Does it matter whose ass warms the Seat? You are my brother. You would've always been my right-hand man, my closest confidant.” 

“I will always serve you, you mean.” 

“You want to be free? Be free. Make your own clan. With my blessing, if that’s what you want. In Naples, in New York, wherever you like.” 

“Start from nothing,” Santino said, sneering, “when our family has held a Seat since the beginning of the High Table.” 

“Why, you think you deserve the Seat just because you have a cock? Please. Do the other System clans fear you, or me?” Gianna smiled, baring her teeth. It was a tigress’ merciless smile, the smile that had earned her the moniker _la tigre_. 

“It doesn’t matter who they fear more. The Seat matters.” 

“If you had used up the Marker to get it, you would’ve lost your protection from John. Do you think John would have forgiven what you did to him? Within that house was every physical memory that he had of his wife. You would have had a very short reign.” 

Santino looked away. He didn’t feel guilty about the house: the rules were the rules. He did, however, regret the necessity of what he had done to John to get what he wanted. Santino had briefly burned away a grief-shattered man to get to the reaper beneath, and in doing so had shackled John firmly back into the life he had tried to escape. “I had plans about that,” Santino said.

“Of course you did. In light of what happened, the High Table has a new rule about the Markers. They can’t be used against anyone with a Seat any longer.”

“So I’ve heard.” Santino had predicted that as well. He’d known that if John couldn’t kill Gianna before she was crowned—and if Ares couldn’t kill John in turn—then. Well. Santino wasn’t so arrogant that he couldn’t understand the consequences. He was still a gambling man, though. “The High Table, afraid of a man in his fifties.” 

“Why didn’t you use the Marker before? You could have forced John to kill me at any time before the coronation. He wouldn’t have had to rush,” Gianna said.

Santino scoffed. “John didn’t just retire. He left behind everything that he was. He wouldn’t have been willing to kill you then. Even if he could make it to you.” 

“You could’ve kidnapped the wife for motivation.” 

Santino stared at Gianna. She picked up the glass and sipped her wine. “Would you have done that?” 

“I would’ve at least threatened her, in your shoes.” 

“John wouldn’t have taken that kindly.” 

“Or you could’ve cashed in the marker immediately after he finished the Task. Before the wedding. That would’ve been easier for John. Unless you assumed that Father was going to will you his seat. Surely you weren’t so ignorant even at that point. I was already handling all our Italian operations. It was obvious where the cards were going to fall.” 

“Why didn’t you have me killed the moment you knew I had John’s marker?” Santino countered. “You know I would’ve used it on you if I had to. Our father killed his brother for the Seat. It would’ve been no different between us.” 

“Would it?” Gianna said. She tangled her fingers together in her lap. “I wished it wasn’t. A wish so great that I believed it to be true, I think.” She looked soberly at Santino. “I don’t think you wanted me dead before, or you would’ve used the Marker earlier. I think this was an impulsive decision that you made when you received the invitation to my coronation. When you refused to respond, I thought something might be wrong.” 

“Think what you like. Your Majesty,” Santino said, with a mocking curl to his lip. 

“I’d like to make peace with you,” Gianna said, smiling her tiger’s smile. “You know that I don’t need to. I’m within my rights to have you put to death, and Ares won’t be able to protect you. You don’t have that many people loyal to you personally, and you’d be cut off from the family funds.” 

“You want to discuss terms of surrender? Hilarious. Let’s hear it.” 

“No,” Gianna said, exasperated, “I said ‘peace’. Don’t be such a fucking ass. Take some time to cool off if you want, but things will continue the way they were. Handle the American arm of the business. If you want more, talk to me instead of, by God, sending an assassin as your calling card.” 

“The world is burning,” Santino said, instead of taking the offer. “Hottest year in Europe so far. In everywhere. Things look bad now, what with the shitshow that is global politics, but it will get much worse in our lifetimes. There will be wars over water in a few decades or less. Cities like Chennai have already run out of water.”

Gianna blinked at Santino, startled. “I didn’t place you as an environmental activist.”

“I’m surprised that everyone _isn’t_ an activist. This is our only world. Whether someone is part of the Arrangement or not, it’s still our world. I don’t want to live on a burning ball of a planet, having to readjust to privation constantly. I like my life as it is now. That’s why I wanted that Seat.” Gianna laughed. Santino stared at her until she stopped. “I knew you would laugh. Profit, profit, that’s all we’ve ever cared about. Money has always been such a stupid concept to me. Measured in paper, in coin, in numbers in a computer. We’re all slaves to a mass hallucination about its value. We can’t even stop what is to come. What’s the point of money when you’re looking at the end of the world?” 

Gianna sobered. “What would you have done with the Seat?” 

“The yakuza once brought supplies to Fukushima after the nuclear disaster when official aid was tied up in red tape. With the Arrangement, we could bypass the useless governments of the world. Or influence them. We could string the world along in the right direction from where we are.”

“A fine thought, if you could get the rest of the High Table to move in the same direction,” Gianna said. She looked thoughtful.

“I’d have started with the Elder. He’s intelligent, by all reports.” 

“And if he refused?” 

“No one’s invulnerable.” 

Gianna leaned back on the divan, chuckling. “There it is. That obstinate arrogance of yours. It was cute when you were eight. Now, it’ll get you killed.” 

“It hasn’t yet,” Santino said. 

Gianna studied Santino thoughtfully. “You’ve never been the altruistic sort.”

“I’m not. Didn’t you hear what I said? I want to do this for myself. If I cared about the lives of others, I wouldn’t even be in the family business. We’re only as wealthy and as powerful as we are because human misery has always been profitable. But I don’t want to leave this planet in a spaceship, or whatever the idiot billionaires of this world think is an acceptable solution. I don’t want to buy land in New Zealand and live in a bunker in my old age.” 

“And for this dream, you would have had me killed.” 

“I would have mourned you for a while,” Santino said, with a cold smile, “but it’s between your life and the last few decades of mine. Yes. You. The Elder. Anyone else in my way.” 

Gianna exhaled. She got up from the divan and crossed her hands behind her back, circling over to look at the old dagger in its case. “I want to have children someday,” she said. 

Santino blinked. Then he snorted. “Good for you. Will you kidnap a husband or use a donor?” 

Gianna flashed him a rude gesture but didn’t look away from the dagger. “I _have_ been thinking. I look at this world somedays and wonder whether it’d even be right to have a child. Wealth and power will insulate them for a while, but in the end, everyone must live in the bed we all have made.” Gianna turned to regard Santino. “I agree with you. Something needs to be done, and we should do it. Together.” She reached out a hand. 

Santino stared at the outstretched palm. He was tempted to slap it away, to laugh and back off and dare his sister to do her worst. To try and kill her again, even here. He let the impulse go. The driving rage that had brought him to John’s door had filtered away to mere bitterness, and bitterness he could handle. He had eaten it for much of his life. Here was the chance for something more. “Together,” Santino said, and took his sister’s hand.

#

John found Dog in the sprawling garden of the villa behind a tall hedge, wriggling happily on his back while Santino knelt on the grass and tickled him. Ares stepped into John’s way with a sharp smile even as Santino glanced up with a startled look and got to his feet. “Cassian said you went sightseeing,” Santino said. Was that a flash of guilt in his face?

“Did. It’s crowded.” The crowds of people around every touristy thing on the list that Cassian had passed John had been too much to handle. 

“You should’ve known that before you even set out for a look. This is Rome.” Santino brushed grass off his knees. “What do you want?” 

“Was looking for the dog.” John whistled. Dog didn’t budge, instead looking up at Santino.

Santino laughed. “What are you looking at me for, tesoro? Go to your master.” Dog huffed and trotted over to John, nuzzling his legs and wagging his tail. 

“Didn’t figure you for a dog lover,” John said. He hadn’t noticed Santino paying any attention to Dog in the villa until now. Though then again, for the first couple of weeks, John hadn’t noticed very much at all. He’d haunted the sprawling hallways and elegant salons of the D’Antonio mansion in Rome as a ghost. Gianna had tried to talk to him regularly at first, but eventually, John had been left mostly alone. Only Cassian still made an effort. 

Santino stuffed his hands into his pockets. “No, John, I’m playing with your dog and walking it and giving it treats because I’m torturing it to death. I obviously like dogs.”

“You still blew up the house with him in it.” 

“I wasn’t trying to kill either of you. If I were, I’d have shot the rocket into your dining room. That being said, yes, I did blow your house up, and yes, I did ask Ares to kill you should you have succeeded in killing Gianna. Now you’re still here, so am I, so is Gianna. No one got what they wanted.” Santino spread his hands apart. “A happy ending.” 

“You still hold my Marker.”

“I’m tempted to use it to get you to shoot yourself, but I hear that’s what you wanted. That’s why I think I’ll keep it for a while longer. You don’t deserve respite.” 

John tucked his thumbs into his pockets. “All these years with Helen. I thought I’d find you at my door someday. Was dreading it. Having to explain things to her.”

“Please. I wouldn’t have been so crass.” 

“Would you have left me alone? If I’d stayed retired?” John asked. 

Santino frowned at him. “Why does it matter?” 

“Humour me.”

“You don’t deserve any such courtesy from me. You still owe me.” 

“I know that. And yeah. You’re right. The life I had these few years, with Helen, all of it. It’s partly because of what you did for me. You didn’t have to take the risk, but you did. When nobody else was willing to help me. Not even Gianna.”

Santino didn’t answer immediately. He turned his head, looking at the gardener trimming the far hedges, at the security peppered quietly around the garden, at the distant skyline. “I liked the odds. If anyone could do the Task, it would’ve been you. Though, I didn’t think you would retire for long. You were born into the Arrangement, just like me. I thought you would get tired of your woman. Of living like one of the sheep. I thought you would return to the Arrangement as a free agent. A Marker would then be a useful thing to have.” 

“I see.” John should’ve guessed. The life they lived left very little space for compassion. The Arrangement burned out people with a conscience, anyone who wasn’t capable of navigating the grey and violent world they lived in without sleeping soundly at night. Logic was what remained in the place of empathy and altruism. A system of service and obligations.

“Go home, John,” Santino said. “Take your dog. Go back to New York. Rebuild your house and crawl back under your rock.” 

“What about the Marker?” 

“What about it? Thanks to the various failures of certain people I could mention, it remains unfulfilled.”

“You won’t use it?” John asked. 

Santino bristled. “I’ll use it if I want. I don’t have an immediate use for it right now. We’re busy. Go home.”

“You’re warning me off,” John said, puzzled. “Why? You and your sister seem reconciled.” 

“Your presence casts a depressing pall on the villa, and I’m going to be in Italy for a while. If you insist on staying, you should try therapy.”

“Think I’d like to go home when I’m done with everything,” John said. He nodded at Santino. “Marker’s the last thing binding me to the Arrangement.”

“If that’s what you think, you’re delusional. Everything you’ve done your whole life bound you to the Arrangement. It was never going to forget you—you just told yourself you did for a while. Look where it got you. You dropped your guard.” Santino walked over, patting John mockingly on the back in a mimicry of Gianna’s comforting gestures. “You think Gianna’s letting you stay here because she feels sorry for you? Wake up.” 

John grabbed Santino’s wrist to still him. Ares took a step forward but stopped as Santino held up his free hand. “Your sister asked me to stay. As a friend.”

“You believe that? Don’t be naive.” 

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“Appearances are everything. Word gets around.” Santino stepped closer with a ruthless smile. “You’re a free agent now, but you’re living in our house. What does it look like to everyone else?” 

“I’m not working.”

“Not yet, perhaps. Your current malaise suits our clan as does your apparent forgiveness of my transgressions. Destroying your house.”

“Winston said I deserved it.” 

“You did. There was still the matter of the dog and the Tarasovs.” Santino was leaning closer yet, his plush mouth inches away. “You haven’t been retired that long. Surely you still understand the value of appearances.”

John did. And yet. “Use the Marker,” he said.

Santino chuckled. A fey mood burned in his eyes, in the furious curl to his mouth. “What’s the rush?” he purred. “I’ve waited years to use it. I can wait for years more. Holding the one unbreakable thing that still binds you to this life, right above my heart.” He curled his hand around the back of John’s neck. When John blinked but didn’t budge, Santino leaned up to kiss him hard on the mouth. John jerked back. Santino grinned, running his tongue over his soft mouth. “If you want to stay, keep this in mind. I still own a part of you—the most important part of you. I like the thought of that.”

#

“Did you say something to John?” Gianna asked as they got out from their car in the driveway of their villa in Monaco.

“You’d have to be specific,” Santino said, stifling yawns. Overlooking the Mediterranean sea on the western side of Roquebrune-Cap Martin, the villa smelled of the sea, surrounded by lush gardens spiked with palms. It did little for his mood. The rest of the High Table had no doubt retired to similar villas for the night, dotted around the Cote d'Azur. Santino briefly entertained a fantasy of having them all killed. Annoying, stubborn, selfish people.

“Before we left Italy for this meeting.” Gianna sauntered through the front door as it was held open for her. She’d been energised by the time-wasting instead of frustrated as Santino had been. 

“In the garden in Rome, you mean, when I kissed him?” Santino smirked. “Yes, we talked.” 

Gianna sniffed, refusing to take the bait. “You and your juvenile gestures. You’re lucky he didn’t decide to break your nose.” 

“Luck had nothing to do with it. I hold his Marker.” 

“If you think that’d stop him if he wants to hurt you, you’re an idiot.” Gianna pulled her coat off and handed it to one of the staff as Santino shrugged out of his.

“If you think he’s so dangerous, why let him stay in our retinue?” Santino shot back. 

“That’s not the issue. I fully support anyone’s right to punch someone for kissing them without their consent.” Gianna glared at Santino. “I think you should apologise.” 

“Please. I telegraphed it.” 

“And that matters so very much? He’s here in our house, a guest of ours. You hold his Marker.” 

“He’s not some shy retiring chambermaid afraid of her lord and master. He’s the most famous assassin in the Arrangement.” 

“Which makes it all acceptable?” Gianna stared her brother down. “Don’t be such a fucking ass. Christ.” 

Gianna had a point, which put Santino in a sour mood as he looked around the large villa for John. John wasn’t in his room, or the library, or the large garden. Eventually, Ares located John sitting quietly beside the infinity pool with a book, Dog curled at his feet. John looked up as Santino waved Ares away and walked over to sit on the deck chair beside him. 

“Meeting went well?” John asked. He looked more anchored than he had been in Italy. John was still solemn and quiet, but he was no longer the broken-down man Santino had talked to in New York.

“No. Didn’t think it would. It’s surprisingly hard to make people think about their self-interests as part of a general, bigger picture.” 

“They’re making money now and don’t wanna change,” John said.

“I knew that. I was being sarcastic.” 

“Right.” John glanced down as Dog woke up, sniffing then panting excitedly as it noticed Santino. It scrambled over to nuzzle Santino’s hands. 

“I don’t have a treat, bambino.” Santino tickled Dog behind its ears. “Ask me again in the morning.” Dog only wagged its tail more furiously. “Did you have a walk today?”

“Let him run around on the beach for a few hours. Nice day out,” John said. 

“Don’t remind me.” Santino gave Dog a final pat and looked up. “That day in the garden when we talked. I shouldn’t have done what I did. The kiss. I’m sorry.” 

John gave Santino a blank look. “You are?” 

Now that what he’d done had been brought to his attention, Santino was even slightly ashamed of himself. Very slightly. “Yes.”

“Could’ve stopped you if I wanted to,” John said, still puzzled. “Saw it coming.” 

“You pulled away.” 

“It wasn’t very good,” John said, turning back to his book. He looked back at Santino as Santino let out a startled laugh. 

“Typical. I try to apologise, and you insult me instead of accepting it with grace,” Santino said. Mischief pulled his plush mouth into a crooked curl, a fey mood winding tight within him. He leaned closer. “John. Would you let me kiss you again if it was better?” 

John’s face was unreadable in the dim pool lighting, but he set his book aside and waited. Santino leaned forward. Whatever John’s reasons were for doing this, Santino didn’t much care. He had always been an opportunist. John’s lips parted as Santino flicked at them playfully with his tongue, then Santino caught John’s chin and took control, kissing John as thoroughly as he would one of his playmates. It was both a challenge and a lie. John was nothing like the people Santino usually took to his bed, who were young and beautiful and pliant. Perhaps John could sense Santino’s gesture for what it was—in response, John twisted his long fingers into Santino’s shirt and pulled him roughly closer. 

Not to be outdone, Santino climbed into John’s lap. John let out a shaky breath as Santino stroked his cheek, as he sucked John’s lower lip into his mouth and grazed it playfully with his teeth. Santino rubbed himself against John, ignoring the angry creak of the deckchair beneath them. John pulled hesitantly at the lapels of his suit jacket, then started on Santino’s shirt as Santino made an encouraging sound. He unbuttoned the shirt with the tentative touch of someone who expected to be pushed away at any moment, his fingertips brushing Santino’s skin with incidental caresses. 

Santino let him wonder. He stroked John’s unshaven cheeks and lied and lied again. With each playfully tender kiss, John relaxed further against him, his touch growing more confident. Santino’s shirt and jacket caught against his elbows as John pulled it off his shoulders, and for a moment John left it tangled, his dark eyes tracking over Santino’s kiss-reddened mouth, the twisted furl of the crisp shirt over Santino’s pale skin. Santino pulled his bruised mouth into a wolfish grin. He leant in and bit John hard on the juncture between his shoulder and throat, hard enough that John would feel it against any shirt he cared to wear tomorrow. John jerked against Santino with a low oath, his hands squeezing tightly enough over Santino’s arms to leave a matched bracelet of bruises. Santino moaned. 

The jacket and shirt were pulled off, falling against the side of the deck chair. There was a faint sound, and Santino chuckled, rearing back to fish in his inner jacket pockets. It was the Marker. Santino tapped the dull silver edge against his lips and chuckled as John stared. He licked a teasing stripe over the back of the coin and watched John flush, big hands curling tight over Santino’s hips. Santino leaned in for a kiss that was truer to what they were, with more bite, with the metallic taste of a blood-price between them. John moaned and dug his fingers into Santino’s hair, kissing him back and squirming against Santino’s thigh as Santino ran the edge of the Marker teasingly down John’s chest, careful of the spike.

John let out a low whine as Santino squeezed the growing bulge in his jeans, then snarled and bucked into Santino’s grip as Santino tucked the Marker between his palm and John’s erection. Santino sank his teeth into John’s ear and moaned against flesh as the powerful body pressed against him jerked. “I didn’t answer your question that day,” Santino whispered huskily into John’s ear. “About whether I would have left you alone if you stayed retired.” 

Santino popped the button on John’s jeans, pulling down the zipper with deliberate care. His cock was wedged over John’s thigh, but the discomfort didn’t feel as important as watching John gasp and writhe under Santino’s hands. “Yes. If you’d stayed retired, I would have left you alone. Not because I felt sorry for you.” Santino tapped the flat of the silver coin lightly against the swell in John’s boxers. “If you hadn’t made such a big splash with the Tarasovs, reminding the world exactly what you are and what you could do—I would have kept the Marker as a memento. Of one of the most interesting people in the world.” Santino nipped John’s ear again, higher along the shell. 

John shivered. He closed Santino’s hand into a fist over the Marker and tried to pull Santino closer, but grew still when Santino resisted. Smirking up at John, Santino shifted down between John’s legs. It was an awkward fit on the deck chair, and they were in full view of the villa, but John didn’t appear to care, spreading his legs as Santino kissed the bulge in his boxers. Right next to Santino’s clenched fist.

“Santino,” John growled. 

Santino bared his teeth as he looked up, his eyes bright with roguish malevolence. “I like that tone,” he said. He kissed John again on the same spot, mouthing wetly over the thin cloth. “What do you want from me now, John?” 

“That pretty mouth of yours.” John pressed his thumb over Santino’s lips and hissed as Santino nipped him. “I want to fuck it.” 

“You could be more polite,” Santino said. 

John merely stared steadily at him. Santino sniffed and pulled John’s cock free of his underwear. Curling his tongue teasingly over the tip, Santino was going to take this slow, rile John up, but John snarled again and twisted his hand in Santino’s hair. The stinging pain would’ve usually annoyed Santino into jerking away and snapping a warning at his partner, yet under John’s hands—knowing precisely who John _was_—made this delicious instead. Santino’s hips jerked against the deck chair, already so hard that he ached. John noticed—he sucked in a sharp breath and shifted his grip in Santino’s hair, pulling him pointedly down. Santino swallowed, stifling a chuckle at the moan that broke through John when John realised that Santino lacked a gag reflex. 

John fucked into Santino’s mouth in vicious little thrusts. It was exhilarating. Moans heaved out of John as he held Santino still with his fingers in his hair, his free hand cupping Santino’s cheek. Hands that Santino had once briefly imagined around his throat, choking out his life. Santino’s hand squeezed tightly enough around the Marker that the edge bit into his skin. He would have laughed if he could. Held down, all Santino could do was let John use him and it was better than he thought it would be. John trembled against him, thighs pressed against Santino’s shoulders. When he came down Santino’s throat, it was with a strangled hiss. His big hands tensed against Santino and relaxed, petting him as Santino drank down the bitter fluid and let up, licking his lips. 

“C’mere,” John said hoarsely. He pulled Santino up for more.

#

“When I told you to apologise to John I didn’t mean that you should suck his cock right next to the fucking pool,” Gianna said over breakfast, because she had no brain filter. Santino choked on his espresso. John paused briefly in the middle of cutting a precise square out of his danish, glancing at Santino before philosophically continuing to eat. “You could’ve at _least_ retired to your rooms.”

“Maybe you should’ve been more specific,” Santino said. He smirked as Gianna pulled a face at them both, lifting his cup back to his still-bruised lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Refs  
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736?fbclid=IwAR0xNGUn2GHWmCTFeA-55l-SXQVStN6nUNzjCRVeKnH9BYMAeofclG9Man0  
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/23/8-iconic-billionaires-who-plan-to-conquer-outer-space.html  
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand
> 
> twitter: @manic_intent  
about my writing etc: manic-intent.tumblr.com  



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